Cortana, for all intents and purposes, is Microsoft's answer to Siri. The A.I. assistant debuted as a major selling point of Windows 10, and while it may be a bit early to declare a winner, Cortana has been well-received thus far.
That being said, Cortana's debut has been somewhat limited. Microsoft has always been upfront about its plans to bring the A.I. to multiple platforms, but for a long time, Cortana was limited to Windows 10 and Windows phones - it was only back in August that a beta version of the personal assistant made its way to Android devices. Sadly, iOS users - the largest smartphone user base on the planet - haven't seen much of Cortana at all.
However, it looks like that may be about to change: according to Apple TestFlight members, a beta version of Microsoft's A.I. assistant has made its way to iOS devices. It's still a long ways from being a full release, but it's still a big step forward for anyone who's looking for an alternative to Siri.
#Welcome, #Cortana!!! #Microsoft on #iOS :D #testflight #beta pic.twitter.com/kZQpfCeGqv
— Diego Guarrella (@Fomalhaut_01) November 26, 2015
While it's great that Cortana has finally made its way to Apple's platform, don't expect to get your hands on it any time soon: the testing pool is extremely limited, with only about 2,000 people actually gaining access to the app. On top of that, the Apple version of Cortana is missing a few of the app's latest features - for example, the 'Hey Cortana' gesture doesn't work on iOS devices quite yet.
Either way, it's nice to see that Microsoft's answer to Siri is still on track: the publisher previously announced that a public version of Cortana would be available for iOS users sometime later this year.
